Yehoshua Chapter 19
This chapter describes how the six remaining tribes (Shimon, Zevulun, Yissakhar, Naftali, Dan and Asher) conquered and settled their respective territories in the Land of Israel. While many of the details appear to us uninteresting, clearly the delineation of borders between the tribes is very significant for both practical and theological reasons that are rooted in the specific promises made to them by Hashem, the specific berakhot recorded in the Torah that they received from Yaaqov and Moshe, and the special role that each is destined to play in the future of the Jewish people. Although they are beyond the scope of a summary, commentaries have been written on these chapters that indeed attempt to uncover the symbolic import of the allocation of particular areas or cities to particular tribes.
On a very simple level, if one reads the blessings of Moshe Rabbenu at the end of the Torah in front of a map, one will see that the order of his blessings corresponds to the layout of the tribe’s inheritances in the Land of Israel (and excludes Shimon, who don’t have a separate area of their own.)
A few highlights are worthy of mention. The tribe of Shimon was told by Yaaqov Avinu that they would be dispersed throughout Israel and was not even acknowledged in the blessings conferred by Moshe Rabbenu at the end of his life; in this chapter, we read how they are not given their own swath of land but instead receive scattered cities within the boundaries of the Tribe of Yehuda which were ample. Their counterpart, the Tribe of Levi, will be discussed in the next chapter.
The chapter describes how the tribe of Dan attacked and conquered Leshem/Layish and renamed it Dan; this incident actually occurred after the death of Yehoshua and is recorded in the Book of Shofetim but is included here because of its relevance to the theme of conquest and settlement.
The chapter concludes by mentioning that Yehoshua was given the territory that he requested, Timnat Serah, which was located in the land allocated to his own tribe, in the mountains of Ephraim. Yehoshua built a city there and remained there until the end of his life. This marked the conclusion of the division of the land to the extent that it was completed before his death; there was still much land left unconquered and unsettled, and many Canaanite settlements remained within the borders of Israel, but Yehoshua failed to inspire his generation to take the process of conquest any further than this. Some commentaries blame him for this, claiming that his initial reluctance to complete the task quickly set the stage for it not to be completed at all.